Hotel, Belgrade

Developing New Belgrade

BELGRADE (RS) - The city of Belgrade recently received a new Falkensteiner superior four-star business hotel, designed by the star architect Boris Podrecca for the Falkensteiner Michaeler Tourism Group. The investment, totalling over 40 million euros, is a welcome boost to the city's economy, and the hotel is expected to enhance the city's tourist offerings.

The new Falkensteiner Hotel is located in the New Belgrade district, close to the river Danube and well connected to the airport and the historical city centre. It comprises 170 rooms, an underground garage with capacity for more than 50 vehicles, and a wide range of various leisure and business facilities. The hotel is complemented by an adjacent office building, also designed by Podrecca. The architectural ensemble of the two buildings fits in well with the modernist grid of New Belgrade, and its appearance speaks a clear language of contemporary Central European architecture, for which Podrecca is one of the most important protagonists today.

'My desire was to bring the quality architecture of Central Europe to the city of Belgrade, and so emerged this hotel, which for me is something deeper, not just architecture. Falkensteiner Hotel Belgrade is a combination of two principles, the lyrical and the epic; two elements, feminine and masculine,' explained Podrecca to the media. The Falkensteiner Hotel is the first design by the Belgrade-born Podrecca, who is also a foreign member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in the city.

The hotel and the office block were constructed in 18 months, from spring 2011 to autumn 2012. The hotel was officially opened to the public in mid-December, with the first guests being journalists and other members of the media from both Serbia and across the former Yugoslavia.